“I knew it. And unconsciously you were
his model for the Inconnu. But it is you, M.
Joyselle! Do not deny it, for I know.”

Joyselle took an olive.

“I do not deny it, Lady Sophy. But I know
nothing of it. If you are right I am—­much
flattered.”

Brigit was amused, for she saw that the Spectre, as
her friends called the grey-draped peeress, had anticipated
excitement and curiosity on Joyselle’s part.

There was music somewhere in the distance, and the
air was sweet with the smell of roses from the room
behind them as well as from the garden below.

Struther talked little, Brigit, with her usual indifference
to others, almost not at all, and as Joyselle’s
self-command rose only to the height of an occasional
reply to the Spectre’s monologue, which was not
of an arresting nature, the party on the balcony was
very quiet.

Brigit suffered tortures as she sat watching Joyselle.
It was, then, as she had feared. He was going
to be strong and make everyone miserable.

If she had been asked to propose any kind of a plan
for the future, her answer would have been, when denuded
of side issues and fantasy, simply that she could
see nothing better than simple drifting. As yet
she could not anticipate, and it roused in her a kind
of jealousy that Joyselle had so soon begun to think
of Theo. His love for her should have dimmed
all consideration for his son—­it should
have been she who suggested some means of hurting
the boy as little as possible.

But she could see that Joyselle was going to be what
she called in the frankness she allowed herself, tiresome
about that wretched boy of his.

She also knew that Joyselle would be anything but
pleased by her resolution to leave home and live by
herself. His respect for certain laws were an
integral part of his nature, and she knew that he would
not approve of her deserting what he was certain to
call the maternal roof. This curious element
of Philistinism in his otherwise Bohemian nature was
very perplexing, and she told herself, as she looked
at him while he gravely listened to the ghostly Lady
Sophy, that her troubles were in reality only just
beginning.

“M. Joyselle,” she asked him during
a pause that only a burning desire for champagne induced
Lady Sophy to allow to pass unchallenged, “will
petite mere mind my coming to sleep to-night?
I want very much to see her about something, and so
I told mother I’d get you and Theo to take me
home.”

He bowed with an assumption of fatherly gratification.
“But of course, my dear.” Then, for
his powers of dissimulation were not of durable quality,
he turned quickly to Lady Sophy.

So that was all right.

When dinner was over and the women were herded together
in the drawing-room, Brigit sat down and took up a
book. In an hour Theo would be coming, and would
want his answer. What was it to be?